New Delhi: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has decided to do away with the 50 percent cut-off criteria in its MBBS entrance exam from this academic year.

The decision was taken due to the inability to fill up the seats in the reserved category seats last year.

However, the decision has not gone down well with the faculty members and resident doctors as they feel that this violates the Supreme Court (SC) order that there ought to be cut-off marks in all the medical entrance exams.

As per the decision, if a reserved category student scores a zero or negative marks he/she can still get admission in AIIMS provided there is availability of seat in the category he/she belongs.

According to rules, if reserved category seats are not filled, then general category students will fill these up.

"Now, even if a reserved category student scores zero in the entrance exam, he/she will get admission in AIIMS. A general category student even after scoring 50% marks will be rejected as the seat belongs to the reserved category. The criterion of 50% marks in the entrance exam was a way to get deserving students on board at AIIMS," said Dr. Rahul Bhargava, President, Resident Doctors' Association, AIIMS.

"This is merely a hypothetical situation as no one scores zero in the entrance examination. In addition, I do not want to discuss on a situation, which will never arise. Moreover, only those students are eligible to apply who scored 50pc marks in their class XII examination," as per Dr. Sunil Chumber, Sub-Dean Academics, AIIMS.

Nevertheless, senior faculty members feel that this will deteriorate the standard of India's premier Medical Institute.

"If a student can't even score a minimum of 50pc marks in the entrance exam, how will he/she be able to clear the regular exams which are very much part of the curriculum? Will this not drop the pass percentage of the regular exams conducted as part of the MBBS programme?'' asked a senior faculty member.

The MBBS entrance exam will be held on June 1, 2009 and there are around 77 seats in the course.